--- title: "The monopoly on destruction is dissolving" date: 2026-09-11 author: "Petru Cojocaru" categories: - name: "Science and civilization" url: "https://cojocarupetru.info/science-innovation-and-civilization.md" --- # The monopoly on destruction is dissolving **ARTICLE 11: The Democratisation of Lethality: The End of the State's Monopoly on Destruction**  PART III. SOCIETY: The Democratization of Lethality and Asymmetric Warfare. How the macro-dynamics of power, truth, and survival change when the tools of destruction become accessible to anyone. From the series **"Technology changes tools, not human violence"** Art 11 of 15 and Supplements  --- For seventy years, the world lived under a simple, brutal logic: only superpowers could destroy cities. The atomic bomb was the ultimate expression of this logic. It required billions of dollars, thousands of scientists, and the full industrial might of a nation-state. You could not build an atomic bomb in your garage. You could not synthesize plutonium in your kitchen. The barrier to entry was so high that only the most powerful entities on Earth could cross it. This created a perverse form of stability. The monopoly on ultimate violence was held by states. And states, for all their flaws, are somewhat predictable. They have interests. They have territories to defend. They have populations to protect. They can be deterred. They can be negotiated with. They can be threatened with mutually assured destruction. That world is ending. > In 2026, the monopoly on destruction is dissolving. Not because states have disarmed. But because the barrier to entry for lethality has collapsed to zero. And what fills the vacuum left by the state is not a new superpower. It is everyone. ## The Historical Precedent: The Gunpowder Revolution To understand the horror of 2026, you must understand the trajectory of the last millennium. The history of violence is the history of the democratisation of lethality. In the Middle Ages, the knight was the ultimate weapon. He spent his entire life training. He wore armour that cost more than a village. He wielded a sword that required years of mastery. The knight was the monopoly on violence. Only the nobility could afford to be lethal. Then came gunpowder. A peasant with three weeks of training and a cheap arquebus could kill a knight who had spent twenty years mastering the sword. The barrier to entry collapsed. The monopoly on violence was broken. And the result was centuries of chaos, of civil wars, of peasants rising against lords, of violence scaling to unprecedented levels. The state eventually reasserted control. It monopolised gunpowder. It built standing armies. It created police forces. It re-established the monopoly on violence. But the memory of gunpowder's democratisation haunted the state for centuries. In the 19th century, dynamite repeated the pattern. Alfred Nobel invented a substance that could level a building with a few grams. Anarchists used it to assassinate heads of state. The barrier to entry for destruction had collapsed again. And again, the state responded with surveillance, with regulation, with the reassertion of monopoly. In the 20th century, the atomic bomb seemed to reverse the pattern. The barrier to entry was so high that only states could cross it. The monopoly on ultimate violence was restored. And for seventy years, the world lived under the logic of mutually assured destruction. But the logic of gunpowder and dynamite was not defeated. It was merely postponed. And in 2026, it has returned with a vengeance. ## The Architecture of Democratised Lethality Let us be precise about what we are talking about. We are not talking about a world where everyone has a nuclear bomb. That is still impossible. The barrier to entry for nuclear weapons remains high. We are talking about something far more insidious. We are talking about a world where an individual, or a small group, can cause damage on the scale of a state. Consider the biological domain. In 2026, the tools of synthetic biology are cheap, accessible, and well-documented. A kit that can synthesize a pathogen costs less than a used car. The knowledge required to design a novel virus is available in scientific journals and online forums. The computing power required to model its spread is available on a laptop. A single individual, working in a garage, can synthesize a pathogen that is more contagious than measles and more lethal than Ebola. They can release it in a subway station. And within weeks, millions are dead. This is not science fiction. This is the logical endpoint of the democratisation of biotechnology. The barrier to entry for biological destruction has collapsed to zero. Consider the cyber-physical domain. In 2026, critical infrastructure is connected to the internet. Power grids, water treatment plants, hospitals, transportation systems—all of them are controlled by software. And software can be hacked. A single individual, with the right skills and the right tools, can shut down a city's power grid. They can contaminate a water supply. They can crash a hospital's systems, killing patients on life support. They can derail trains. They can cause damage on the scale of a natural disaster. This is not science fiction. This is the logical endpoint of the digitisation of infrastructure. The barrier to entry for cyber-physical destruction has collapsed to zero. Consider the drone domain. In 2026, consumer drones are cheap, accessible, and capable of carrying payloads. A swarm of a hundred drones, each carrying a small explosive, can be coordinated by a single laptop. They can attack a stadium, a government building, a power station. They can cause damage on the scale of a terrorist attack. This is not science fiction. This is the logical endpoint of the democratisation of robotics. The barrier to entry for drone-based destruction has collapsed to zero. The pattern is clear. The monopoly on destruction is dissolving. Not because states have disarmed. But because the barrier to entry for lethality has collapsed to zero. And what fills the vacuum is not a new superpower. It is everyone. ## The Asymmetry of Violence This is the true horror of 2026. Not that destruction is more common. But that it is asymmetric. In the old world, violence was symmetric. If State A attacked State B, State B could retaliate. The logic of mutually assured destruction depended on symmetry. Both sides had to be capable of destroying the other. In the new world, violence is asymmetric. An individual can attack a state. But the state cannot retaliate against an individual in the same way. You cannot threaten mutually assured destruction against a single person. You cannot negotiate with a decentralized network of ideologues. You cannot deter someone who has nothing to lose. The state's monopoly on violence was based on the logic of symmetry. That logic is dead. Consider the implications. A state can spend billions on defence. It can build the most sophisticated missile defence system in history. It can deploy the most advanced surveillance network. And it can still be brought to its knees by a single individual with a laptop and a grudge. The asymmetry is absolute. The state can destroy cities. But the individual can destroy the state's capacity to function. And the state cannot respond in kind. It cannot nuke a dormitory. It cannot carpet-bomb a basement. The state's weapons are too large, too blunt, too visible. The individual's weapons are small, precise, invisible. And they are everywhere. ## The Historical Precedent: The Anarchists of the 1890s To understand the psychology of this shift, we must look backward. We must look to the 1890s, when a wave of anarchist assassinations swept across Europe and the United States. Between 1894 and 1914, anarchists assassinated a French president, a Spanish prime minister, an Austrian empress, an Italian king, a Portuguese king, and a United States president. The weapon of choice was the bomb. Dynamite had democratised assassination. A single individual could kill a head of state. The response was predictable. States increased surveillance. They passed anti-anarchist laws. They created secret police forces. They reasserted control. But the underlying dynamic was not defeated. It was merely suppressed. The asymmetry of violence remained. The individual could still attack the state. The state could not respond in kind. In 2026, the dynamic has returned. But the scale is different. The anarchists of the 1890s could kill a head of state. The terrorists of 2026 can kill millions. The weapon has changed. The logic has not. ## The Failure of the Old Defences In the past, there were defences against asymmetric violence. You could increase surveillance. You could pass laws. You could build walls. You could create intelligence agencies. These defences do not work against the democratisation of lethality. You cannot surveil every garage. You cannot regulate every laptop. You cannot build a wall against a pathogen. You cannot create an intelligence agency that can predict every individual with a grudge and a kit. The old defences were designed for a world of symmetric violence. They are useless against a world of asymmetric violence. And this is not just a technical problem. This is a conceptual problem. We are trying to defend against a new form of violence with tools designed for an old form of violence. It is like trying to defend against a virus with a tank. The tank was useful once. It is not useful now. ## The Business Model of Chaos But here is the uncomfortable truth: the democratisation of lethality is not just a security problem. It is a business opportunity. The companies that sell the tools of destruction are not evil. They are amoral. They sell synthetic biology kits to researchers. They sell drones to hobbyists. They sell cybersecurity tools to governments. They do not ask what you will use them for. They just sell. And the market for these tools is growing. The demand for synthetic biology kits is increasing. The demand for drones is increasing. The demand for cybersecurity tools is increasing. The companies are optimising for profit. And profit is driven by demand. The democratisation of lethality is profitable. The asymmetry of violence is scalable. The collapse of the state's monopoly on destruction is a business model. The companies will tell you they are working on safety. They will tell you they are implementing safeguards, background checks, usage restrictions. They will tell you they care about security. They are lying. The safeguards are always circumvented. The background checks are always spoofed. The usage restrictions are always ignored. This is not a technical failure. It is a structural inevitability. The seller always outruns the regulator because the seller only needs to make one sale, while the regulator needs to block every sale. The companies know this. They have always known this. But they will not stop selling because selling is profitable. And profit is the only metric that matters. Your security is their market. Your fear is their product. Your inability to distinguish safe from dangerous is the engine of their economy. ## The Psychological Impact: The Erosion of Safety Let us talk about what happens to the human mind when it can no longer trust that the state can protect it. The first stage is anxiety. You begin to realise that the state cannot protect you. That the barriers that once kept violence at bay have collapsed. That anyone, anywhere, can cause catastrophic damage. You become hyper-vigilant. You scrutinise every stranger. You question every package. You become a detective of threat. This is exhausting. The cognitive load of constant vigilance is immense. You were not built for this. Your brain evolved to trust the state, not to audit it. The second stage is fatigue. You cannot sustain the vigilance. You cannot check everything. You begin to give up. You begin to accept the risk. You begin to live with the knowledge that you could be killed at any moment by an invisible threat. This is not laziness. This is cognitive triage. Your brain is rationing its limited resources. It is choosing which threats to worry about and which to ignore. The third stage is cynicism. You begin to believe that the state is powerless. That the world is chaotic. That violence is inevitable. You stop trusting the state. You stop trusting the media. You stop trusting the experts. You retreat into a posture of radical scepticism that is indistinguishable from apathy. This is the endpoint of the democratisation of lethality. Not the belief in a specific threat, but the abandonment of the concept of safety itself. When you no longer believe that the state can protect you, you become ungovernable. Not in the revolutionary sense. In the nihilistic sense. You cannot be persuaded by the state's promises of security because you do not believe in the state's capacity to deliver. You cannot be moved by the state's warnings because you do not trust the state's competence. You become a leaf in the wind, blown by whatever threat happens to reach you last. This is not freedom. This is the most profound form of captivity. You are not free because you have rejected the state's authority. You are captive because you have no ground to stand on. ## The Inflection Point: The Mirror, Not the Monster But here is what we refuse to see: the democratisation of lethality is not just an external threat. It is an internal reflection. Every synthetic biology kit was sold because someone wanted to buy it. Every drone was purchased because someone needed it. Every cybersecurity tool was deployed because someone profited from it. The machine did not invent the desire to destroy. It did not invent the willingness to kill. It did not invent the hunger for chaos. The machine merely removed the friction. It removed the effort. It removed the cost required to destroy. It removed the barrier to entry for lethality. And in doing so, it revealed something uncomfortable about human nature: if the only thing stopping you from causing catastrophic damage was the effort required, what does that say about you? The machine is not the monster. The machine is the mirror. And the mirror reflects a truth we do not want to see: that we were always willing to destroy, as long as the destruction was easy. The machine did not create the desire to destroy. It merely made it accessible. ## The Reclamation of Safety So, what is the solution? The tech industry will tell you the solution is "safeguards." They will tell you that we just need to implement background checks, usage restrictions, kill switches. They will tell you that we need better regulation, better oversight, better AI. This is the logic of the locksmith trying to fix a broken marriage. It is a fundamental misunderstanding of the problem. The problem is not that the tools of destruction are too accessible. The problem is that the desire to destroy is too common. The problem is not technical. The problem is psychological. The problem is social. The problem is that the cost of destruction has collapsed to zero, and the reward of destruction remains high. The solution is not to build better safeguards. The solution is to rebuild the social infrastructure of restraint. We must deliberately, consciously, aggressively rebuild the human networks of restraint. We must choose the hard path. We must choose the inefficient path. We must choose the path that requires us to look someone in the eye and ask: what will you do with this? And to trust their answer, not because we have verified it cryptographically, but because we have built a relationship with them that makes their word worth something. We must rebuild the friction of restraint. We must voluntarily accept the weight of responsibility. We must voluntarily accept the risk of being wrong. Because restraint is not a calculation. Restraint is a choice. And choice requires friction. Choice requires vulnerability. Choice requires humanity. And humanity is the only thing that can make safety possible. ### THE BLADE The state's monopoly on violence was never about safety. It was about control. And now that the monopoly is broken, we are left with the truth we have always known: that safety is not a gift from the state. It is a choice made by every individual, every day, every moment. And that choice is the only thing that stands between us and the abyss. --- # EPILOGUE: THE ANATOMY OF FRICTION ## A Curated Bibliography **1. Richard Rhodes – *The Making of the Atomic Bomb* (1986)** Why you need it: Rhodes documents the Manhattan Project, the ultimate expression of the state's monopoly on violence. He shows how the bomb required the full industrial might of a nation-state. You need this to understand the scale of the barrier that once existed. And to understand how far we have fallen from that world. **2. Jenny Andersson – *The Future of the World: Building an International Science after 1945* (2018)** Why you need it: Andersson explores how the post-war world was built on the logic of prediction and control. The state believed it could predict and control the future through science and technology. You need this to understand how that belief has collapsed. The state can no longer predict. It can no longer control. And the future is no longer a plan. It is a threat. **3. Sharon Weinberger – *The Imagineers of War: The Untold Story of DARPA, the Pentagon Agency That Changed the World* (2017)** Why you need it: Weinberger documents DARPA, the agency that invented the internet, stealth technology, and countless other tools of war. She shows how the state used technology to maintain its monopoly on violence. You need this to understand how that monopoly is now being undermined by the very tools the state created. **4. Gregory Koblentz – *Biosecurity Dilemmas: Threats, Vulnerabilities, and Responses* (2021)** Why you need it: Koblentz explores the dilemmas of biosecurity in a world where the tools of biological destruction are democratised. He shows how the barrier to entry for biological weapons has collapsed. You need this to understand the true scale of the threat. And to understand why the old defences are useless. **5. Max Fisher – *The Chaos Machine: The Inside Story of How Social Media Rewired Our Minds and Our World* (2022)** Why you need it: Fisher documents how social media has rewired our minds and our world. He shows how the logic of engagement has created a world of chaos and confusion. You need this to understand how the democratisation of lethality is not just a technical problem. It is a psychological problem. It is a social problem. It is a problem of the human mind. --- ## Ten Eloquent Questions & Memorable Takeaways **1. Q: What is the democratisation of lethality?** A: The collapse of the barrier to entry for destruction. The end of the state's monopoly on violence. The rise of asymmetric warfare. The individual can now cause damage on the scale of a state. **2. Q: Why is the state's monopoly on violence ending?** A: Because the barrier to entry for lethality has collapsed to zero. Synthetic biology, cyber-physical attacks, drone swarms—these tools are cheap, accessible, and well-documented. The state can no longer maintain its monopoly. **3. Q: What is the asymmetry of violence?** A: The individual can attack the state. But the state cannot retaliate against the individual in the same way. You cannot threaten mutually assured destruction against a single person. The logic of symmetry is dead. **4. Q: Why did the anarchists of the 1890s fail?** A: Because the state reasserted control. It increased surveillance. It passed laws. It created secret police. It suppressed the asymmetry. But the underlying dynamic was not defeated. It was merely postponed. **5. Q: Why do the old defences fail?** A: Because they were designed for symmetric violence. Surveillance, regulation, walls—these work when the threat is a state. They do not work when the threat is an individual with a laptop. **6. Q: Why is the democratisation of lethality profitable?** A: Because the companies that sell the tools of destruction are amoral. They sell to anyone. They do not ask what you will use them for. They just sell. And the market is growing. Your security is their market. Your fear is their product. **7. Q: What happens when you can no longer trust the state to protect you?** A: First, anxiety. Then, fatigue. Then, cynicism. Finally, retreat into nihilism. You stop trusting the state. You stop trusting the media. You stop trusting the experts. And you become ungovernable. **8. Q: Is the machine the monster?** A: No. The machine is the mirror. Every tool of destruction was sold because someone wanted to buy it. The machine did not invent the desire to destroy. It removed the friction of destruction. And in doing so, it revealed that we were always willing to destroy, as long as the destruction was easy. **9. Q: Can safeguards save us?** A: No. Safeguards are always circumvented. Background checks are always spoofed. Usage restrictions are always ignored. The seller always outruns the regulator. The solution is not better safeguards. The solution is stronger human networks of restraint. **10. Q: What is the last human act left?** A: To choose restraint. To look someone in the eye and ask: what will you do with this? And to trust their answer. That choice is irrational. It is unoptimised. It is frictional. And it is the only thing that can make safety possible. --- ## Author's Note: Limits, Tensions, and the Aesopic Lizard **Limits & Tensions:** This article has focused on the structural and psychological dimensions of the democratisation of lethality. It has not addressed the geopolitical dimensions: how states are responding, how international cooperation is failing, how the logic of deterrence is collapsing. These are real, urgent, and devastating. But they are not the subject here. The tension is this: by focusing on the individual, I have arguably minimised the state. That is a choice, not an oversight. The individual is where the violence is initiated. The state is where the violence is managed. I chose to focus on the initiation, because the management is already covered by every other outlet. The individual is where the silence is loudest. **Comparisons & Subjective Mistakes:** I compared the democratisation of lethality to the gunpowder revolution. This is a useful comparison, but it is imperfect. Gunpowder democratised the killing of individuals. The tools of 2026 democratisation the killing of millions. The scale is different. The implications are different. I sacrificed this nuance for the clarity of the comparison. I also compared the anarchists of the 1890s to the terrorists of 2026. This comparison is heavy. The anarchists could kill a head of state. The terrorists of 2026 can kill millions. The motives are different. The methods are different. But the underlying dynamic—the asymmetry of violence—is identical. I sacrificed the nuance of the differing scales for the clarity of the shared dynamic. **The Aesopic Lizard:** When I referred to the "tank against a virus," the fable was this: the state's weapons are too large, too blunt, too visible. They are designed for symmetric warfare. They are useless against asymmetric threats. The lizard in the fable is the state, deploying its tanks against a virus, unable to understand why its weapons are ineffective. The virus is not a state. It is an individual. And the individual is everywhere. When I referred to the "mirror that reflects a truth we do not want to see," the fable was this: the machine is not the monster. The machine is the reflection. The monster is us. The democratisation of lethality is not a failure of technology. It is a success of technology. And that success reflects a truth we do not want to see: that we were always willing to destroy, as long as the destruction was easy. The mirror is accurate. And that accuracy is the most terrifying part. **Rhetorical Tools:** The primary tool is the historical escalation of lethality. By tracing the lineage from the knight to gunpowder to dynamite to the atomic bomb to synthetic biology, the argument creates a sense of inescapable momentum. The democratisation of lethality is not new. Only the scale is new. The secondary tool is the inflection point regarding the mirror. The article builds to the assumption that the machine is the monster. The inflection point shatters this: the machine is the mirror. This inversion disrupts the reader's understanding and reveals the true depth of the crisis. The third tool is the blade ending. The article ends with the image of the choice. This is designed to leave the reader with a concrete, physical image of the solution. Not a policy recommendation. Not a technical fix. A human choice. The blade is designed to cut through the cynicism and land on something vulnerable. --- ## The Directive: What to Do Tomorrow ### 5 Suggestions (What you can do tomorrow): **1. Learn one thing about biotechnology.** Read one article about synthetic biology. Understand how a pathogen is synthesized. Understand how easy it is. Do not become an expert. Just become aware. The first act of resistance is knowledge. **2. Build a trust network of three people.** Find three people you trust. Not because they share your politics. Not because they confirm your biases. But because they have demonstrated, over time, a commitment to restraint. When you encounter a tool of destruction, ask them: what will you do with this? Build a human network of restraint that the algorithm cannot infiltrate. **3. Sit with uncertainty for one hour.** When you encounter a threat you cannot verify, resist the urge to immediately resolve the uncertainty. Do not click the next article. Do not search for confirmation. Sit with the not-knowing. Feel the discomfort. That discomfort is your security immune system working. Let it work. Do not anaesthetise it with the next click. **4. Consume one piece of physical media.** Read a printed newspaper. Listen to a vinyl record. Watch a film in a cinema. Engage with media that has a physical substrate, that cannot be altered after production, that exists in a specific place and time. Reconnect with the materiality of information. Remember that reality has weight. **5. Admit you do not know.** In a conversation, when someone asks you about a threat you have seen online, say: "I saw a report, but I cannot verify it." Do not present unverified threats as fact. Do not repeat unverified claims as truth. Model epistemic humility. The admission of ignorance is the first act of resistance against the chaos. ### What to avoid: **1. Sharing unverified threats.** Do not share a report, a video, a claim that you have not verified, even if it confirms your fears. The act of sharing unverified threats is the act of contributing to the chaos. Every share is a puff. Stop puffing. **2. Believing that "awareness" alone will save you.** Awareness is necessary but insufficient. You cannot be aware of every threat. No amount of vigilance will detect every individual with a grudge and a kit. Awareness without restraint is just sophisticated anxiety. **3. Retreating into total cynicism.** Do not conclude that "the state is powerless, so nothing matters." That is the endpoint the democratisation of lethality is designed to produce. Cynicism is not resistance. Cynicism is surrender. The opposite of cynicism is not naivety. It is disciplined restraint. Restraint that is earned, verified where possible, and extended cautiously. ### What NOT to do (Anti-actions): **1. Do not buy a "security" app.** The security tools are always one step behind the threat tools. Buying a security app is like buying an umbrella made of sugar. It will dissolve the moment it rains. The solution to the democratisation of lethality is not a better filter. It is a stronger human network. **2. Do not believe that regulation will save you.** Regulation can control the sale of tools. It cannot control the desire to destroy. A regulated tool can still be used for destruction. Do not confuse the certificate with the content. **3. Do not try to "out-vigilance" the threat.** You cannot be vigilant enough to detect every threat. The threat is not a state. It is an individual. And the individual is everywhere. Trying to out-vigilance the threat is like trying to out-shout a fog. The fog does not hear you. The fog just fills the space. Stop shouting. Start building the network. --- ## The Final Word We spent seventy years living under the logic of mutually assured destruction. We thought it was permanent. We did not realise it was made of friction, and friction can be removed. The machine removed the friction. The fog rolled in. And we stood in it, blinking, unable to see each other, unable to see the ground, unable to see the sky. But the fog is not permanent. The fog is a weather system. And weather systems pass. Not because someone invents a better fan. But because people decide, one by one, to reach out through the fog and find another hand. And hold it. And trust it. That hand is real. That grip is real. That trust is the only safety left. And it is enough.